Monday, October 31, 2011

Went to the Halloween party the school threw over the weekend dressed like Dr. Strange.
Got to show the IDEC kids The Picture of Everything site on the smartboard.
Had some of the kids with the lowest cognitive abilities make great strides in learning addition.
Even staying up until 1am I was able to get up by 6:30 before the alarm.
Discovered the falafel place for lunch near the school.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Rum Diary
The Avengers movie
The Hunger Games movies
New South Parks
New Beavis and Buttheads
New Futuramas
New Venture Brothers
New Through The Wormholes
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 with Doctor Strange (out Nov 15th)

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Kids in the IDEC room are having a lot of success with developing their scary stories from rough drafts to final products. The progress is quite remarkable.
The kids in the SDC class needed a lot more review, but there's twice as many in that class as there is in the IDEC room. The teacher is still dealing with way too many brand new instruction modules being thrown her way.
My friends filmed me this week in both classes for my video assignment. It'll be interesting to see the difference in my demeanor in both settings.
Got to give a lesson in how to draw a monster to the IDEC kids on Friday afternoon. That was pretty cool. I'm an art teacher at last!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

There were dozens of dead roaches in the staff refrigerator but no one stepped up to clean them out.
The 4 kids who are mainstreamed to a general ed math class are ahead of all the other students in their SDC class when it comes to mathematics.
Does mainstreaming special ed students work?
When they have a good TA or student teacher to help them!
We have a guy coming in to the IDEC room each week to teach a reading strategy that involves drumming.
It was developed by one of Jimi Hendrix's drummers.
I personally think it only sort of helps.
One of the required reading books I read to the kids was all about zombies.
They have Ceasar Chavez Day and MLK Day off, but not Columbus Day. I can understand that.
Found out the school janitor's 12 year old son got a 14 year old girl pregnant.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Standardized testing is very disruptive.
I think it's detrimental to do it in the first 2 months of school.
Kids like computers. They take to them fast.
The laptops crash or drain their batteries rapidly, however.
One malfunctioned today, started beeping, and wouldn't stop.
Saw notable improvements in some students from what they did on Monday to what they could do on Friday.
Someone stole my small bag of cookies this morning from the staff dining room.
My CSULA professor came to observe me doing progress monitoring and math lessons today. I think I did all right.
Got to see what a rainy day schedule was like on Wednesday: Not very fun for the teachers or the kids.
Woke up before my alarm rang every day this week.